Gracious Days
by Vaysh11
Summary: What holds Frodo in the Shire. This story takes place in 1421 S.R., before Frodo leaves for Valinor. "Gracious Days" is set on Frodo's fifty-second birthday, "On this Side of the Sea" a few weeks after Elanor's birth in March.
1. Gracious Days

The morning fog hangs like curling smoke between the apple-trees; Mr. Frodo walks through it, slim frame wrapped in his Elven cloak. Most days now he steps out into the garden, in the cold hour before sunrise. Sometimes Sam feels him leave the bed they share more nights than not. Other times he wakes and Mr. Frodo is gone, but he knows where to find him. Strolling through the orchard underneath the gnarly apples and the sweet plums. Or standing in the middle of the Party Field, at the young tree, waiting for the first light to shine on its golden leaves.

Today Mr. Frodo walks along the fence without haste, as if he's measuring Bag End's gardens. The cloak's hood has fallen from his head, he looks up towards the early morning sky. _There's a tree where the doves go to die, in the cave at the tip of the lily,_ he told Sam just yesterday, and that is how Mr. Frodo will speak often now. At first Sam thought he was quoting Elvish poetry to him, but he understands now that to Frodo saying those beautiful, strange words is no different than talking about the blackbirds nesting underneath the old shed's eaves. No different than talking about how sweet the rosehip tea has been this glorious year. How Rosie's speckled bread is a right treat when it comes fresh out of the oven. All of this, their quiet life in Bag End – and then Mr. Frodo will talk about a _cry filled with footsteps and sand._ Something's changing in him, Sam sees it most every day. When he's looking at him, asleep at night, dark curls on the pillow, or – as he does now – from the kitchen window. Something's changing in Frodo, and whatever it is, to Sam it's bright and blazing like the sun peeking over the Hill just now.

It's Bilbo's birthday today, his one hundred and twenty-ninth. _One year short of the Old Took,_ Frodo said yesterday with his dear, crooked smile. They were stocking the kitchen and the cellars for the Party tonight. Later Pippin and Mr. Merry will come and likely other folk will show up, as well. There will be feasting and drinking and singing until the wee hours of the night. Rosie went for her mother's for the week, leaving them rabbit pies and crumpets and punch. _You lads do your celebrating, like in the old days,_ she said with a quick peck on the cheek for Sam, and she's a wise one, his sweet lass, she is.

_The old days._ There are moments during those gracious days, with just Mr. Frodo and him in Bag End, that Sam is reminded of those long peaceful years, when Mr. Frodo had been Master of the Hill and he his gardener and nothing more. But they can't go back to that, and it's not that Sam wants to. He knows now how Frodo's skin feels against his own, how his sweat tastes, his pain, his dreams, knows how Frodo desires. There is no going back, knowing all this of each other.

Mr. Frodo has his face turned towards the new day, his face alight in joy and wonder. He raises his hands as if to touch the warmth of the sun, but then he stretches his arms out wide and starts twirling around himself. Round and round, Mr. Frodo is spinning, gracefully and ever faster. It's the third time now that Sam has seen him dance like this, to music that only he can hear.

_Darvishes_, the men in Gondor called the lithe, brown-bodied dancers from the South, eating swords of flames and bewitching snakes to rise from their wicker baskets. Mr. Frodo dances like them, cloak whirling around him, in Bag End's orchards. Sam can see the joy on his face, radiant and so alive. Something's changing in him, and it makes Sam's heart ache.

Folk are talking about Mr. Frodo, Sam knows, talking behind his back about _Mad Baggins_, who's now cracked for certain, and even madder than his old fool of a cousin, Old Bilbo Baggins. Sam glances up at the fence, to see if there's an early riser strolling across the meadows. Mr. Frodo is dancing in plain view, and Sam worries what folk would say if they'd ever see him like this. The talking Sam can't help, but he won't stand for them making fun of Mr. Frodo. Folk are cruel that way, when they don't understand. And how can anyone but Sam understand him now? Mr. Frodo's brought something Elvish home, or perhaps, it's always been within him and their long journey has but brought it out. Sam's heard him talking to plain Hobbiton folk in his beautiful, strange words, and he's seen them shake their heads and whisper amongst themselves, once Master Baggins left. Sam can't help it, but it makes his heart hurt, to see Mr. Frodo like that when he should be praised and honoured, for all that he did and gave to save the Shire.

It's Mr. Frodo's fifty-second birthday today. A good age for a hobbit, just coming into his prime. He has his life still before him, he can marry a lass befitting his standing, and start a family of his own. But as Sam watches him dance under the trees, spin and twirl, arms and hair flying, he knows that this will never happen.

The garden is drenched in the pale golden light of the morning now. Mr. Frodo's ended his dance, he stands all still, face flush, the sun on his face. Then he turns and looks over to Sam as if he's known all along he's been watching. He raises his hand, and for a moment Sam thinks he's inviting him to come dance the Darvishes' dance. But the gesture turns into a wave, and Mr. Frodo walks across the garden to the kitchen door. Sam hears the latch open, soft, quick steps and the shuffling of clothes, as Mr. Frodo takes off the cloak. He's still standing at the window when Frodo steps close and leans against him.

"Sam," he says, still a bit out of breath from his dance. His fingers seek Sam's skin underneath the night-shirt. They are warm and heat rises in Sam, when Frodo turns him around.

"I brought you _a piece from the morning,_" he whispers, and then he kisses Sam, and Sam tastes it, tastes the sweetness of apples and plums, glittering dew on grass, a breeze rippling through crisp air. He tastes all of this, and more, something wild and blazing that is all Frodo.

They kiss, long and sweet, and Sam's hands find Frodo's skin, too, and he draws him close. Always, when they are like this, it's as if salt water is flooding him whole, with a sharp sting and an aching tenderness that leaves Sam shaking when they pull apart. But Frodo's arms are around him, holding him tight, brown eyes sparkling.

"You," he says with his crooked smile, "always make me come home."

"Home for your birthday, Mr. Frodo, and just in time," Sam says, for what else can he say to this?

And there, just when Frodo is about to turn and put on the kettle to make tea, Sam hears it. Like far-away bells and flutes, he hears the music that Frodo's body dances to.

**o o**

**Author's Notes:** Frodo's "beautiful, strange words" are taken from Leonard Cohen's "Take This Waltz." The title is taken from Annie Lennox' "No More 'I Love You's'".


	2. On This Side of the Sea

A couple of days ago Frodo finished the telling of their tale. All is set in black letters on the pages of the book Bilbo left him, with a few left for Sam to fill in his part of the story. Since Frodo finished the tale, a burden has lifted off his mind. Something is drawing him onward, beyond the borders of the Shire, and now his final task is done. The days ahead are mostly invisible to him but he is granted glimpses here and there. He will not stay in the Shire much longer.

The heavy leather-bound book lies open on the desk; he has been writing for hours. He is going through the pages, revising and adding little things he remembers when he re-reads his words. They lack the sparkle and flourish of Bilbo's prose but he is content. It is a honest recounting – Bilbo's and his own memoirs, the Great Story of their age seen through the eyes of the little people. Frodo hopes it is worthy of the great deeds done by the Valiant and Wise.

The scritch-scratch of the quill is the only sound in the study. The rusty smell of ink hovers in the air, laced with the scorched fruitiness of gallnut. So familiar, these sounds and smells, and the bright light of a Shire afternoon streaming in through the open window. An invisible breeze brings Sam's voice with it, low and full as he is talking to someone at the gate. Master Hamfast on a visit to see the youngest of his grandchildren, is Frodo's guess, and already the croaky voice of the old gaffer can be heard rambling about the weather and how the potatoes are not yet in the ground where they should be.

"It's too late for second earlies if you want them out by Afterlithe," the Gaffer says, and Sam chuckles, a bit exasperated if Frodo is not mistaken but with a warmth that betrays how deeply he loves his father.

Frodo turns back to the book and reads: _Sam walked beside him, saying nothing, but sniffing the air, and looking every now and again at the great heights in the East._ He wrote those words himself, as true to memory as he could. And yet he wonders what Sam really saw when he looked up to the snow-tipped Misty Mountains. Frodo adds a few words, the ink running on the parchment and in his memory the pine-woods of Imladris shimmer a dark green.

And what if he explores the deep-cut valley, what if he gets into those pine-woods now? Frodo walks on soft needle-strewn ground. And it is the Northern slopes, wooded and steep, of the valley of Imladris where he sniffs the air that is ripe with the scents of autumn and a brisk cold that speaks of winter ahead. He is a wanderer here, between time and place. Frodo turns towards a presence at his left (_Sam, are you with me?_) and a clear light slants through the trees, soft like the afternoon and bright like the morning. He walks into it as it shines through him, spreading from the scar above his heart down his left side, and as if he were made of glass, it fills him, fills him to the brim –

"Master? Frodo?"

Sam's hands are on his shoulders, warm and safe, and Frodo turns to look up into his eyes.

"_Nef aear, sí nef aearon_," he whispers, the Elvish rolling of his tongue, and he says, "_a river's disguise, the hyacinth wild on my shoulder_," alien words that his lips form without conscious thought. He tries again, tries to find words that make sense in this place, which has been home for most of his life. But no sound comes from his mouth and Frodo can just look at Sam, pleading with him to understand. And perhaps Sam does because he places his hand gently over Frodo's chest, covering scar and light, and Frodo feels the beat of his own heart, steady still. Still here.

**o o**

Sam comes more often now to Frodo's bed. In the blue hours of the morning, he will move against Frodo, body solid and warm, and eager in a way they have not been with each other since Minas Tirith.

Perhaps it is because Sam is not yet invited back into Rosie's bed after the birth.

Perhaps it is because of all the women fussing over little Elanor and making sure Rosie is getting enough rest. Weeks like this, when Sam has just returned from his travels in the Northfarthing, caring for the seedlings he had planted last year, there is always a gaggle of womenfolk around, cousins and aunts of the Cottons, or May and Marigold up from New Row. Having the smial full of women makes Sam seek refuge in the garden or in Frodo's rooms, the study, the front parlour and in Frodo's bedroom beside the big green door.

After all those years of living with only Bilbo, and after, when the smial was his alone, Bag End now reminds Frodo of his youth at Brandy Hall, the endless stream of visitors, light female voices echoing from the kitchens, laughter (and occasionally crying) of children coming from the gardens. He enjoys the hustle and bustle even when he is no longer part of it. At odd times, he will find himself walking down the hallway, quiet like only the little people can be, and tuck himself in the window seat by the kitchen door – to listen to the clatter of voices and kitchenware, to the women's songs and the kettles' soft hissing over the fire.

More often than not, Sam will find him and come sit with him, arm circling Frodo's waist like he often does, ever since Mordor. Those bitter days left their mark on them, and it shows in the way their bodies seek each other out, at mealtimes and under the flowering apple-trees. They have been lying with each other long before Sam married Rosie, and it has never been just about a body's needs between them. But in those still moments Frodo thinks there is something new and urgent that makes Sam hold him close.

Rosie has come down with a cold, common in spring like daffodils, and Cousin Hazel from the Brown side of the family arrived shortly after elevenses, to "help out" she said, taking the besom right out of Sam's hand. The tall lass is Rosie's age, and the women are close, so Hazel is sleeping in Rosie's bed tonight.

Which makes it easy for Sam to slip into Frodo's room at nightfall, after they smoked a last pipe in front of the door. It is not unusual for _the lads_ (Rosie's words, not his) to share a bed, and it is not as if Rosie does not know. She is a shrewd one, Frodo learned during the last year. She is also generous in her loving, or else she knows she can never come between her husband and his Master.

Sam moans beside him, a needy sound that still makes Frodo want to touch him in the most intimate places. In the darkness their lips find each other amidst a heated tangle of limbs. They share breath, and it is Sam's tongue that opens Frodo's mouth to the sweet taste of the Shire. They share their bodies' desires, and it is Sam's hands that make him arch in pleasure. Sam's solid weight covers him whole, starlit like the Shire sky, and when it is Frodo's turn to touch, he rejoices in the sturdy softness of Sam, skin-close and closer even. The smooth linen, the scent of lavender sprigs beneath the pillow, the creak and squeak of the bed – all of this Frodo notices when he lies in Sam's arms, sated and anchored in this world.

The moonlight's silver glitter makes him feel at home then. He can look at Sam and imagine him whole beside himself, quiet years together stretching before him, with the trees growing wide and tall and Sam's family filling Bag End with children and their children in turn, like Bungo and Belladonna once envisioned all those many years ago.

"My dear Sam." Soft words in the darkness, and no matter what words Frodo will say in the days to come, he will always remember those words.

Sam pulls him closer, so warm, so undeniably here. "Me dear", he whispers, a breath across Frodo's skin. This is what they are to each other. What they will be, forever.

**o o**

Frodo wakes in the early morning. At his side, one arm flung over Frodo's chest, Sam is softly snoring. In his sleep Frodo walked through the pine-woods of Rivendell again, under a sky that knew neither sun nor moon. If he listens closely he can still hear the music, swelling and subsiding like the tide. Words rise in his mind, _the moss ... the flood of your beauty ... your dancing_, and others he can taste (but not say), sweet like honey, on the tip of his tongue. They make Frodo's blood sing and fill him with such aching longing. He slips out of bed, out of Sam's arms without a look back. Impatiently, he puts on his trousers and snatches a shirt from the hook. In the hallway he takes his Elven cloak, out of habit more than anything else.

Something is waiting for him outside, something mighty like the sea. He has no words to describe it but it is all around him in the wind, in the promise of dawn just behind the Hill. He is wrapped in blue darkness as the stars pale in the sky. The grass is wet with dew. His heart goes out to the West, he can taste salt water in the air. His feet find their way to the Party Field, like they always do, without fail.

When the orange ball of the sun rises over the Hill, Frodo is standing below the young Mallorn tree. The Lady Galadriel's gift for Sam, who will be staying in the Shire, has also become a gift for Frodo, who will soon be leaving. There is music in the whisper of the leaves, there is a rhythm to the swaying of its supple branches. Frodo touches the gem he always wears on a chain around his neck. It alights with a sparkling brilliance of its own. Frodo tilts his head far back, and through the leaves he can see the pale moon to the east and the sun blazing in the west. This is his road, this is where he will be going. Not much longer now ... Frodo hums along with the leaves, he moves to a rhythm beating strongly underneath his skin. Slowly, he starts to dance.

**o o o**

**Author's Notes:** Quotes in this story are indicated in italics. The first quote is from _Fellowship of the Ring_, the others are by Frederico Garcia Lorca in the adaptation of Leonard Cohen's "Take This Waltz".


End file.
